1. This one may puzzle those of you who aren’t language teachers, The transformative role of scaffolding in academic writing tutorials is the title of the next event in UCL (University College London)’s Academic Writing Seminar Series at 16:00 UK time this Thursday, 29th February, with Cathy Morand from UCL’s Academic Communication Centre.
More info and registration here https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/events/2024/feb/transformative-role-scaffolding-academic-writing-tutorials
2. Two on Ukraine next:
i) Russia, America and the roads not taken by Vladislav Zubok from the London School of Economics, an account of opportunities missed https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/russia-america-and-the-roads-not-taken/
ii) Ukraine’s decade of war by the Ukrainian novelist and commentator Andrei Kurkov, which argues that the conflict is actually ten years old, not two https://engelsbergideas.com/notebook/ukraines-decade-of-war/
If you haven’t yet read Kurkov’s Death and the Penguin, it’s not too late! It’s not quite as good as reading the book, but here’s an edition of World Book Club with Kurkov discussing his novel and reading extracts https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p03139g2
3. As recommended at the British Council event on AI & ELT last week, the series of Reith Lectures by Stuart Russell from the University of California, Berkeley on Living With Artificial Intelligence, in which he “asks how artificial intelligence could transform our world and discusses whether fears of AI are well founded or whether we can learn to make it work for us” https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001216k/episodes/player
Transcript of the first lecture in the series here https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2021/BBC_2021_Reith_Lecture_2021_1.pdf
and PDF below.
Plus a bonus feature from The Global Story series which also features Stuart Russell, How artificial intelligence could upend 2024’s many elections https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0h3zrlf
4. Here’s the latest issue of EL Gazette, with a partial focus on reading https://www.elgazette.com/elg_archive/ELG2402/mobile/
PDF (without the page turning sound effects!) below.
5. ‘Unlocked’ by The Paris Review for five days only, three prize-winning short stories:
i) This Is Everything There Will Ever Be by Rivers Solomon (with an audio version, too) https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/7963/this-is-everything-there-will-ever-be-rivers-solomon
ii) My Good Friend by Juliana Leite, translated by Zoë Perry https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/7993/my-good-friend-juliana-leite
iii) Helen by James Lasdun https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/7990/helen-james-lasdun
Don’t delay!
6. And, finally, three beer glasses in one https://www.dezeen.com/2024/02/19/sapporo-nendo-beer-glass/
I could imagine a glass of this shape might confuse some drinkers towards the end of a heavy evening’s drinking!
Roy Cross's Blog 